Armenian Politician Doubts Benefits Of Talks With Turkey

April 15, 2009 08:10 GMT

Giro Manoyan, the head of Armenia's Revolutionary Federation opposition party

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Armenian Politician Doubts Benefits Of Talks With Turkey

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YEREVAN -- An Armenian party leader within the governing coalition has rejected President Serzh Sarkisian's argument that the country will benefit from trying to open dialogue with Turkey even if the talks fail, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.

A week after U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey, Giro Manoyan, the leader of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun (HHD), said that Turkey played nice to Armenia in order to "prevent Obama from uttering the word genocide." He said that Obama restricted comment on the 1915-1919 mass killings of Armenians during his trip to Turkey in order to support increased dialogue between the two countries.

Turkey has since backpedaled on the talks by making resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict a precondition for further dialogue.

Sarkisian told reporters on April 10 that Armenia will "emerge from this process stronger" regardless of the outcome because it will prove its commitment to the international community.

Manoyan told RFE/RL that the opposition agrees with Sarkisian "in a sense," but it depends on "how long those negotiations will continue and whether or not we will lose something else in the process."